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Talk:Earth-Two-A
The characteristics and chronology of Earth-Two-A I thought we should discuss and clarify Earth-Two-A here before we go too much further with it. Which stories it entails, do we leave all the stories currently assigned to Earth-One where they are or are some set on Earth-Two-A, which Superboy stories, if any, go there, etc. DrJohnnyDiablo (talk) 13:18, September 12, 2017 (UTC) :Superman (and no other) stories published in Action Comics #s 1 ~ 15 are set in Cleveland, vice Metropolis, so those should be Earth-Two-A stories. :If the Daily Star changes to the Daily Planet in some earlier or later issue of Action Comics than #16, that's easier to explain away than the change from Cleveland to Metropolis. It's quite possible for Cleveland and/or Metropolis, in the late 1930s, to have several major newspapers, with one of them being the Daily Planet and a competitor being the Daily Star. :Superboy stories are, I think and hope, set exclusively on Earth-One, and definitely not on Earth-Two. :Also relevant is the discussion ongoing at Talk: Action Comics Vol 1 47. :Stoop Davy Dave (talk) 10:04, September 13, 2017 (UTC) ::SDD, that description of Earth-Two-A doesn't jibe with any that I have ever read. It is supposed to account for Golden Age stories featuring Perry White as editor of the Daily Planet. On Earth-Two, Clark, Lois, Jimmy and company worked at the Daily Star all the way to 1985 and Clark Kent took over as editor-in-chief from George Taylor in the '50s. That is why Earth-Two-A was proposed by E. Nelson Bridwell in the '70s. The only real problem I have with it as a concept is that it was never named in-universe by DC, but we have a lot of universes on this wiki that share this trait. DrJohnnyDiablo (talk) 13:32, September 13, 2017 (UTC) :::It seems to me, the whole Earth-Two-A concept is splitting hairs in a way that feels a bit fancrufty. I just don't see the practical use of this information, other than explanatory notes in the Earth-Two page and the individual issues where the concept may apply. Footnotes, if you will. Having a universe designation certainly doesn't feel appropriate. - S.S. (talk) 15:06, September 13, 2017 (UTC) ::::the whole existence of Earth-Twelve and Earth-Thirty-Two is based on such "hair splitting" (and that is ignoring such one shot wonders like Earth-116) so that is a non argument. ::::More over there are other issues with Earth-Two vs Earth-Two-A thanks to the differences between the actual Golden Age comics and what would be Earth-Two history. ::::Regarding the "never named in-universe by DC" that is true of the majority of the 114 different Earths listed in Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition but it was named as Alternate-Earth-Two in The Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Index. Also we have "Earth-2B" which references back to the non existent "Earth-Forty-Six" so we have no idea that Earth was but the name implies an alternate Earth-Two.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:16, September 14, 2017 (UTC) :On Earth-Two, Clark and the gang worked at the Metropolis Daily newspaper. Point of Earth-Two-A was to consign the Cleveland Daily newspaper stories to a different timeline. Or so I thought. :Practically, yes, an explanatory note on the Earth-Two page, and on at least 15 Action Comics issue pages, and on a handful of Detective pages, actually should cover the whole matter. Instead of that, a new and relatively untested universe designation is being added to a long series of early Action Comics issue pages. This seems extreme to me. Stoop Davy Dave (talk) 01:22, September 14, 2017 (UTC) :::: As I stated above, this Earth is meant to be the setting of the early post-Daily Star stories. No mention was given to the Cleveland-set stories. And yes, I'm also fine with letting the Earth-Two-A page be deleted. I just figured we should get a majority opinion either way before BruceGrubb got too far into this. DrJohnnyDiablo (talk) 01:32, September 14, 2017 (UTC) You both do realize that Alternate Earth-2 (Aka Earth-Two-A) comes from The Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Index, right? And that expressly states that Earth-Two's Metropolis first appearance was in , right? That an official source which overrule the old ones and effectively states that whatever we are seeing in the Golden Age it is NOT Earth-Two.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:44, September 14, 2017 (UTC) : Bruce, even if that's canon, it's canon for the post-Convergence timeline. Convergence may claim they have resurrected old timelines, but it's clear they are really just creating new versions of those timelines. So nothing that DC publishes in 2017 can alter what it published in 1986. And I can point you to literally hundreds of sources published between 1960 and 1986 that indicate that every Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and JSA story published between 1938 and 1945 occurred on Earth-Two. : The idea that 1938 Superman and 1941 Superman are two different characters is bad enough. But the Earth-Two-A and Earth-Two distinction -- or Stoop Davy Dave's distinction between Cleveland-Superman and Metropolis-Superman -- cleaves reality well into the 1980s. In the late 1970s, the JLA-JSA teamups featured a Superman who could not fly (i.e., the 1938 Superman). By the mid-1980s, the JLA-JSA teamups featured a Superman who could fly (i.e., the 1941 Superman). If we distinguish these Supermen as living on different earths, then we also need two different Power Girls (since she was explicitly the cousin of the Earth-Two Superman in the 1970s and the 1980s, which are now being declared to be two different Supermen). We also need to explain why the 1980s JSA had memories of the 1970s team-ups, if they were the JSA's from two different Earths. : Or we could accept the simpler explanation: When publishing comics between 1938 and 1941, DC was inconsistent regarding Superman's powers. When publishing comics between 1961 and 1986, DC decreed all Golden Age Superman stories as being on "Earth-Two", but some writers who wrote Earth-Two stories in this era showed a flying Superman and others showed a leap-over-tall-buildings Superman. But we don't have to create new worlds for every inconsistency. : Because if Luthor's hair and Superman's city produce different earth, what/s next? Earth-One-G is the world where [[World's Finest Vol 1 220|'Batman's right boot is green']]? 06:39, September 14, 2017 (UTC) ::Well there is Earth-116 where the colors of Superboy's insignia are reversed. :-) ::Ok, seriously DC, like Marvel, mixes the terms parallel world and alternate timeline together to the point it is clear they don't know which is which anymore. It doesn't help that DC can't seem to agree if there are only 52 universes or not nor what the extent of the alternate timelines in each of those universes (for example, is there a timeline for Earth-15 in which the really still exists? Is Earth-AD a possible future for Earth-One or is it a separate parallel world?) ::Then there is the elephant in the room. The concept that allowed DC to have an Earth-Three when Earth-Three was destroyed ( ): Hypertime. In fact, we know that at least six of the realties Brainiac got his cities from were hypertime realities. Heck, for all we know that is where he got all his cities from (it would explain why the Owlman there had no superpowere but the actual Earth-Three version did). Worse, hypertime has been said/show to exist all the way from Pre-Crisis to Post-Conversance so it is beyond any of the reboot (ie FUBAR) the multiverse events DC has had. That is not mentioning the Dark Multiverse which the 52 supposedly sits atop. ::Hypertime was (and it) the ultimate blank check for continuity as you didn't need a totally different Earth to explain contradictory events that supposedly occur in the same reality. The problem is that hypertime realities can be (and are) named. Having Earth-Two-A a hypertime reality that regularly interacted with Earth-Two explains a lot. Besides there already have a hypertime reality that dates all the way back to 1940: Earth-Forty.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:36, September 14, 2017 (UTC) Reasoning behind Earth-Two-A The Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Index (nearly all of of which was used in Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition) established that "Alternative Earth-Two" (aka Earth-Two-A) existed: "An Earth-2 in which Clark (Superman) worked at the Daily Planet under editor Perry White in the 1940's and 1950's (On Earth-2 Clark Kent worked for the Daily Star and his editor was George Taylor, until Taylor's death. Perry White was merely a reporter)" (sic). Omniverse #1 uses other information from E. Nelson Bridwell's reply in the Superman Family letter page to postulate the existence of Earth-E giving more details regarding Superman and Batman. While it could be argued the existence of Earth-E is questionable (even though it was proposed by Mark Gruenwald in his "In Search of the Super-Sons Tangent" article) Earth-Two-A isn't. Here is what Mark Gruenwald pulled from E. Nelson Bridwell's comment (it is footnote 4 in the article) about Superman of that Earth: * Kal-El was two years old when his rocket landed. * Had a Superboy carrier in Smallville * Parents passed away in 1948 * Worked for the Daily Planet. Now Gruenwald takes that ball and runs with throwing a good hunk of material between and into Earth-E. Regarding "minor changes, inconsistencies, and (if you like) retcons throughout DC's history" take a good hard look at the 114 some Earths in Crisis on Infinite Earths: Absolute Edition and note how many of them fall under that category. Heck, there is an Earth where the only detail (we know of) is the colors of Superboy's insignia are reversed. Then you have Earth-Twelve and Earth-Thirty-Two which were called collectively "Earth-B" by fans. Finally, there is which expressly states that Earth-Two's Metropolis first appearance was in which would logically indicate that the Metropolis we see before that comic is not Earth-Two. QED.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:37, September 14, 2017 (UTC) :So "Earth-Two-A" existed. Do we really have to start looking among all Golden Age stories to see which ones fit the parameters? How worthy is such endeavor? Because unless someone wants to index all Superman stories, we'll end up with serious internal inconsistencies... :The Convergence info is just as accurate as other data found in all other "official" encyclopedias that claim that the first appearance of Earth-One Batman is . We all know that's a fallacy because many stories prior to that issue were cherry-picked by DC for the Earth-One canon of the character, including the introduction of the JLA. Besides, we don't create alternate Earths for all universes just to fit whatever the CoIE Index indicates (see:Earth-154). All I'm saying is, all this info is minimal and circumstantial and it could perfectly fit as a series of notes, and imo doesn't really warrant the creation of a separate universe designation. - S.S. (talk) 04:42, September 14, 2017 (UTC) ::Okay given that Earth-Two-A existed, it needs to be accounted for. What is the most efficient way of doing that? It seems as if a 1-paragraph blurb, added to the Notes section, in about 40 ~ 50 individual pages, should cover it nicely. 1-para blurb needs to say "Here's what Earth-Two-A is" and "Here's why this story is set on that timeline." So if Batman is using machine guns, or killing bad guys on purpose, or if Clark Kent lives in Cleveland, that's okay, there's an existing reason for that. It needs to be noted on the Earth-Two and Earth-One pages, and for complete coverage there should still be an individual page for Earth-Two-A. Full stop. It does not need to infect the universe designations of every existing golden age story. Stoop Davy Dave (talk) 11:09, September 14, 2017 (UTC) :::Not every existing golden age story as some are already accounted for by other Earths with Earth-54 and Earth-Forty being the largest of the two. Of course these are the ones DC bothered to categorize. There are clear alternate Earths for which we have no name. :::Regarding Bob Rozakis' 1979 comment you have Batman's first appearance in a comic from Sept, 1959 and one from May, 1964 which is clearly nonsense as you cannot have the first appearance of a character (as we use it) in two comics over three years apart. More over and both credit the May, 1964 comic ( ) as the first appearance of the Earth-One Batman and Gotham City. :::Of course if you follow the logic things get really messy. If the Batman from to is not the Earth-One and based on Bob Rozakis' comment he isn't the Batman of Earth-Two...then what Earth were Batman fans following for over three years? Even if we throwout the idea of assigning him to another Earth entirely (good idea IMHO) we are still going to have to fix everything as the Earth-One Batman and his city didn't show up until . We can even invoke hypertime to explain what are regarded as Earth-One and Earth-Two characters interacting before official crossovers became a thing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:28, September 14, 2017 (UTC) DC is not concerned with separating universes for such small inconsistencies and neither should we. The Batman Silver Age stories are set in Earth-One because: 1. it's easier for us to index the information that way and 2. because that's what DC has proposed, even if it doesn't always makes sense because of conflicts with information provided by other individuals working at DC. I mostly agree with SDD's suggestion, but I'll also include that Earth-Two-A should be turned into a concept page. - S.S. (talk) 18:04, September 14, 2017 (UTC) :Actually, as Earth-Thirty-Two and Earth-Twelve show DC is concerned with separating universes for such small inconsistencies, otherwise they would have done what fans had been doing for years and was canonized in The Official Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover Index and put all those comics into "Earth-B" rather then putting them into two seperate Earth as they did. Other Earth built on "small inconsistencies" include Earth-54, Earth-85, and Earth-300.6. :Finally as I pointed out before there is hypertime which seems to fit what is going on with Earth-Two-A. If you count the ashcan comic, Thrill Comics #1, the hypertime reality Earth-Forty goes all the way back to 1940.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:49, September 14, 2017 (UTC)